Not just Rain, but RAIN! The Dragon plays in the Sea of Turn 1.

This year’s Runoffs started with a huge rainstorm for Monday qualifying, and Bill and the Dragon made the most of the weather snagging the first day’s pole by a whopping 30 seconds! In truth, this was more like navigation than driving, but a pole is a pole especially at the Runoffs. This meant that we got to start in the front of the pack on Tuesday for the first dry qualifying session.

Sittin’ at the Front of the Line



Ready to go!

It would be great to say that the rest of the week was just as good as the beginning but we had some challenges to overcome. One of these was a shortage of track time. After the downpours of Monday, that left only 2 sessions to fine tune the car and get our best effort in. This was due to a change in schedule for this year where there were only three 22 minute qualifying sessions per class. So after finding the car working well on Tuesday, that left only Thursday for a real qualifying try.

The team of Soter Slomski, Bob Barone and myself had the car on the grid ready to go for the 09:15 Thursday session. A few changss had been made after Tuesday and we had a fast guy Jen Luc Liverato next door on the grid to work with. Once on the track JLL and I moved ahead and within a couple of laps I had improved my time by 2.5 seconds. Coming in for a scheduled adjustment, everything was fine. Unfortunately on the first hot lap after the stop Ken Tyrell blew his motor and parked his Stohr across the main strainght with a seized gearbox. The led to the session being red flagged and that was qualifying. Never did get a chance to se whether our adjustment was good or bad on the watch, had to depend on the drivers “butt dyno” (not reliable).


Race day was Saturday Morning and it was Gorgeous! Sunny with temps in the 60’s. I started from the 14th spot and was planning an aggressive start. The first start lap was waved off, and on the 2nd we got the green. Unfortunately not everyone stayed in line, and I got boxed in when the car in front braked, dropping to nearly DFL. Annoyance is a great motivator, and I used the extra excitement to run through the cars that had gone by on the first two laps. After that it was try to catch the next pack and run some good times. After and uneventful Runoffs race I finished 12th .

Ripping down the straight to “the Kink”

So 2008 is in the books, and SFRE has had a pretty darn good season overall. We ran a limited schedule but improved every where we ran, set a new Lap Record at LRP and ran close to the record at Pocono. The solo Nationals were a lot of fun, seeing all those Dragons winning and getting a 4th place trophy was great. Topeka Runoffs were a small let down, but since we could not test like the top teams we did OK.

I want to take the time to thank the people who made this year possible:

Soter “Dr. Velocity” Slomski was once again a great crew chief and friend, we again shared more overnight driving chores and bad food than made sense, but always got it done.

Bob Barone helped out at NHIS, Co-drove with me at the Nationals and made the trip to Topeka again to crew at the Runoffs. He gets the stamina award.

Jerry Shields and Mark Chessick provided trailer support throughout 2008. It goes without saying that we would never have done any of this without your generous help.

Greg Vincent who once again crewed at Beaverun and opened his home to us in Pennsylvania.

Bruce Foss and Brian Brown of Hoosier Tire who stuck us to the track all year long.

My sincere thanks to each of you and I hope to race with you again in 2009.

OOPS! Bill G launches one with Tom Saunders in the background

This year SFRE was finally back at the Solo Nationals. After 2 years of the championships being back to back with the Runoffs, SCCA granted us an extra week of space between these two events. This meant that there was time to drive to Topeka not just once, but twice! Ho,hum, just your normal 3000 mile commute.

To get us to the track and help our customers, we had a larger trailer than usual, graciously lent to us by Solo stalwart Mark Chessick. This meant that we had the space to transport the over 1000 lbs of customer gear that let other NER drivers compete at the big dance. That’s right folks….850 lbs of race car and 1000 lbs of additional cargo.

Bob Barone and I made the trip to Topeka ahead of the Hurricane predictions and just after the Biblical rains that the Pro Solo had to contend with (8+” of rain in 24 hours!). Sunday saw us trying out the car on the Heartland surface for the first time on one of the previous Pro courses. Things were OK, but the cold and windy conditions meant very little total bite, diminishing some of usefulness of the session.

Monday was open, while Tuesday and Wednesday were for watching and cheering for SFRE customers and NER drivers. Nick and Joe Barbato were sampling their very first National and showed good speed in AS and CS classes. Barb Seegar barely made it to the site for Monday, but after a good night’s sleep trophied 2nd in ASL with her honking Corvette.

Thursday was the first day of Competition for Amod, Bmod and Cmod, with the Amod guys drawing the short stick and running the West course in the first “heat”. With the sun barely up, the temps were low, making Amod a “last run” competition for perennial NER fast guy Bill Goodale in his Dragon F1.

Bmod was decent sized even though there were no open wheel cars at all. Sports racers dominated the field with two Runoffs DSR escapees in the mix. The Dragon Sr2 and Charlie Smith’s Cheetah will both see Topeka twice this year at SCCA Solo Championships and The Runoffs.

Second Heat East was the spot to start Bmod. This was one of the area’s that the pro solo and the warm event used, but by the time we ran it the surface had changed, so that the balance we had on Sunday was gone. Big time push was the order of the day. Time to scramble and adjust the setup! Each run was better for both Bob and I but on my last run I got to the finish area to find a corner worker jumping up and down waving a cone wildly. Unusual technique, but it got my attention! The previous car had a suspension failure in the run off area and was dead in the water. When I stopped the car I stalled it and it was reluctant to restart, meaning that Tom Saunders (Dragon Sr1) also got a rerun. This would be a big help to his championship run. TS went out and did what we all try to do with an extra run, trimming off about a second, putting him way out front in class. Final trophy positions on Wednesday were Saunders, Simonds, Berger and Starr.

Friday morning was once again crisp and clear with Amod and Bmod swapping courses. The West, Roger Johnson course, used a little more space and was a good mix of corners, slaloms and speed changes.

By this time we had the chassis in the Sr2 working on the unusual pavement and went fast right away. When the smoke had cleared the final order was Tom Saunders (Dragon Sr1), Clemens Berger (Legrand MK18 with Dragon mods), Perry Simonds (Dragon Sr1) and Bill Gendron (Dragon Sr2). Bmod ladies was won by Brianne Corn in T Saunders’ Dragon Sr1 making a clean sweep of all Bmod trophies for Small Fortune Racing!

Champion Once More: Tom Saunders

SFRE drivers Jim Garry, Ken Hurd and Stacey Strout all competed in Cmod with Jim repeating as National Champion! Ken had a fine 2nd place finish in Jim’s Citation .

Two time Cmod National Champion Jim Garry

Ready for the track at LRP

Mid August was the first time SCCA national racers got to sample the new pavement at Lime Rock Park. After years of lines that avoided the bumps, drivers could now charge the track. Lap records fell in DSR, FE, FF and F500.

SFRE had missed the Watkins Glen race (held in a downpour) due to a last minute engine event that had us dropping in the newly freshened “backup” power plant. Even though the field for DSR was small, I had high hopes for our overall performance and looked forward to running with Bob Gardner’s WF1 Stohr.

After a good qualifying day on Friday, rain fell on Saturday, but fortunately stopped at about 1 PM. The start of the Wings ‘n Things race saw cool, cloudy conditions, which improved as the race progressed. Big excitement on the first lap at Turn 3 saw a couple cars get knocked out and the Dragon Sr2 getting shuffled back a couple of spots in the chaos. As soon as the track went green again, we were back on the move towards the front and had a good race with two open wheel cars. In the end the new lap record was set at 51.9 seconds.

Soter Slomski & Bill Gendron celebrate the new Record with some bubbles!

Next race is the Double National at Pocono.

Photo by Bob Barone

For the second time in two races the Dragon Sr2 has set the pole time for it’s National race. Saturday morning’s damp weather proved to be the best of the day and saw Bill Gendron’s Sr2 ahead of Bob Gardner’s Stohr WF-1 for the FA/CSR/DSR/S2 race.

Sunday was much nicer with race temp’s in the 80’s and brilliant sunshine. Bob got by the Dragon on lap 2 with a great inside move and led the rest of the race, although the fast lap was set by Bill by nearly .5 seconds on lap 27.

Next race will be the Watkins Glen National in July. This will be a big race, with drivers from other parts of the country, and DSR phenom Jean-Luc Liverato, joining the NE drivers at the most exciting track in the division.

The National Tour at Devens was hot this year! I mean Really HOT! Temperatures in the 90’s and humidity to match combined with brutal sun to cook the drivers , tires and motors. Small Fortune drivers gutted it out and scored many good finishes including Fast Time for the event, Amod, Bmod, Cmod, FSP and FP wins.

Photo by Dave Hyman

Neil Schelly’s FSP Subaru

After a long winter of engine rebuilding and suspension tuning Neil’s Subaru scored big this weekend with one of the largest winning margins: 3.114 seconds! Check out the new monster 17” wheels and sticky tires! Big things ahead this year for Neil and his all wheel drive wagon.

Photo by Bob Barone

Road Race Refugee

Bill Gendron brought the Dragon D Sports Racer to the event, and even with a super tall first gear (78mph) managed to set top time of the event both days. Do race cars make good solo cars? What do you think?


Bill Goodale and Bob Barone had a great time hammering on each other, especially on Sunday’s faster course where they could “fly the wing” and use their power advantage. Bill ended up with the win, but Bob looked good after his 2 year layoff. Expect good times from both of these drivers during 2008.

National Champ shows the way

CM saw 5 drivers with SFRE backgrounds hammering the course and each other. Jim Garry, Ken Hurd, Stacy Strout, Craig Carr and (all the way from Arizona) Mark Huffman were all looking for the big prize, but Jim G, current National Champion in CM, showed the way with very smooth driving. His last run of 51.8 would have covered the class by more than a second if not for one of those pesky cones. K Hurd finished 2nd while Stacy Strout collected third position.

Missed it by that much!

Reigning National Champ Mike Shields couldn’t hold off challenger Alex Shchipkov this weekend, but he looks forward to defending his National win this Fall in Topeka.

Mike Steere debuted his updated Focus at this event. New suspension parts, upgraded engine and transmission mean big speed for this unusual EP entry. Expect big speed from this car over the summer.

XP Shootout

Kevin Kirchoff was planning to run his Rx7 with the SFRE coil over setup in ASP, but found a leaky rotor seal and borrowed a ride from pal Bill Stone in XP for the Tour. Both cars have similar suspension setups, but Bill’s has the stouter motor allowed in XP. Even though they were running DOT tires in this Prepared class, both drivers had some slick runs.

Smooth, Classic and…..Lavender?

Bob Lang looked good with his TR6 this weekend. After a couple of years of building it is back on the track for 2008. Unopposed this weekend, I expect Bob to be hard to beat in the Northeast Division.

Photo by M Chessick

Coolest Driver at the Tour!

Mark Chessick drove his new for 2008 Honda S2000 in E modified, giving away up to 3000 cc of displacement, but he had a secret weapon….when Sunday’s temperatures went up to the BBQ range, he dropped on the hardtop and turned on the AC for 3 cool runs! Expect Mark to add HP to the great handling of his slick tire S200 in the future.

Bob Jordan was another driver who has been absent lately, but came out for the Tour. His Rotax powered Zink is still quick however and he had 6 good runs. Bob now spends many hours on his Suzuki naked sportbike and is looking for a new home for the Z19, so if you are looking for a lot of speed on a budget, give him a call.